Saturday, June 11, 2011

I had a days work at an advertising agency in Covent Garden in London this week. Not particularly exciting stuff, but they like my work so regularly ask me back.

While in the area I took advantage of the opportunity to drop by the G-Star RAW store on Shorts Garden, only a couple of streets from the Paul Smith store that stocked the Reissued Shirts last year.

The G-Star RAW store is the largest retail outlet for their clothing, so the perfect place to look and make some face-to-face enquiries.

Looking around there are a dazzling array of jeans on offer, but I couldn’t see what I wanted.

I spoke with the manager, who was very helpful and up for the challenge of working out what I was trying to find.He did explain though, the day I walked in was official the start of their summer season, and of 25 variations of jeans in stock, 23 were discontinued!Now, it is pretty clear that their Blade style of jeans are definitely the right cut, what is less clear is exactly which fabric is used to make them.

After explaining the style - Blade - and the fabric type - black waxed - he seemed to understand what I was referring to. Another term I had heard - 3-D aged - nailed it for him and he dug out their bible of clothes and styles. He pointed at the type and the fabric option.

‘That’s it’, I said, ‘Do you have them?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘but they could be ordered, if stock was available’.

He checked and they had my size so I placed an order.

He explained the same thing happened when Shia LaBeouf wore one of their t-shirts in the Transformers movie. They had lots of enquiries, but it was from a previous season, then discontinued. The bosses considered bringing it back specially - like the Paul Smith reissue - but it never happened. Guess we were lucky that Paul Smith did.

Anyway, a few days later he called me to let me know the jeans were in and I returned to pick them up.

I now have three pairs of these Blade jeans, each in a different fabric finish - each a bit closer to the screen-used ones.

Crushed Black from very.co.uk

When I started looking the only black version I could find were these standard black denim, known as Crushed Black.

The stitching is black to match, and the decaling on the back pockets are grey. The fabric is quite glossy enough though.

Spark Denim: 3-D Aged via eBay

This time round I found a pair in a waxed, shinny finish. The stitching is in a contrasting white, as is the rear decal.

When the Utah publicity stills emerged, it was possible to see that the stitching is visible, and could well be the white as on these jeans. But the colour had a bit more depth that a pure black lacks.

Slate Denim from G-Star RAW store

This time around I think I got a bit closer still. I chatted at length to Alan at the G-Star store, quizzing him in particular about the range as it stood a year ago. He knew his stuff and said the Spark Denim would have been the only one available at that time that would fit the bill. Hence ordered a pair from him.

The stitching and decal are again white, but that has been held up already by the Utah stills. The branding and decals could well have been white, but like the Converse logos on Tennant’s trainers, have been obscured or painted over.

If you have found a pair of Blade Jeans in the right colour with decals other than white, let me know and I can add it to the list.